REACH Article from Daily Hampshire Gazette

GETTING TOTS ON TRACK: HOW THE REACH PROGRAM HELPS CHILDREN WHO NEED A
BOOST GET STARTED

BY
LISA SPEARDAILY HAMPSHIRE GAZETE

MONDAY, JUNE 12, 2017

After a difficult pregnancy three years ago,
Thalia Ghazey-Bates of Northampton gave birth to her twins two months early.
When the babies were finally able to come home, she and her husband had to be
on high alert: Sometimes they would stop breathing.

Basic care, like nursing also was a challenge.
When her husband wasn’t at home, she’d hold one baby to her breast while the
other sat in a car seat, which she would rock with her foot.

With
a 3-year old needing attention, too, there were few breaks, and lots of
questions. But Maggie Krone, a developmental specialist from REACH, a
state-funded early intervention program, was there at least two hours
per week to lend a hand and ensure the infants were developing on
track.

“It is like having an aunt or an uncle or a
grandparent who is professionally trained,” said Ghazey-Bates.

REACH, run through the western Massachusetts
human service organization ServiceNet, helps parents of children — from birth
to age 3 — who have developmental delays or may be susceptible to them. The
services are covered by most insurance plans, including MassHealth and
parents are never asked to pay out of pocket, says Amy Swisher, vice president
of community relations at ServiceNet. What insurance won’t cover it, the
Massachusetts Department of Public Health fills in, she says.

At first, Krone was there to hold a baby or
give Thalia emotional support when her husband, Spencer Ghazey-Bates, was
at work. Sometimes she would read to the oldest child.

As the babies, Lilliah and Ryland, grew,
Krone would play with them, teaching them words and other social skills, a
boost Ryland seemed to need more than Lilliah, says Ghazey-Bates. When it
seemed that Ryland was lagging behind in gross motor skills, too, a physical
therapist began visiting, to work on strengthen his core muscles to help him
crawl and then walk.

At around age 1, Ryland started having
episodes where he would seem to space out, and it was another REACH
developmental specialist, Lisa Musante, who sensed something was wrong. She
encouraged the parents to consult a neurologist, which resulted in a epilepsy
diagnosis. Ryland now takes medication to control his seizures.

“Without REACH I don’t think we would have
been able to manage their needs as well,” Ghazey-Bates said.

Early involvement

The goal of the REACH program is to
catch developmental delays early. It’s a service that’s been supporting
families for 40 years with a team that now numbers 70 professionals.
Developmental specialists do an initial assessment to understand the child’s
needs. From there, occupational, physical and speech therapies are planned and
social workers are available to answer parents’ questions.

REACH is providing assistance to 580
children in Hampshire and Franklin Counties and the North Quabbin area.

When a child is born prematurely — or with a
condition such as Down syndrome in which delays are expected — parents are
matched at the hospital with a REACH specialist or a team to guide them through
the first months or years of the child’s life.

“If a child has a delay, the sooner we can
intervene, the better,” Musante said.

Sometimes the connection comes later
when a parent thinks their child is struggling or a pediatrician notices
that a baby is not crawling or talking like he or she should be.

“His doctor thought that he was behind the
speech curve,” said his father, Jason Page, “so the REACH people came and did
and evaluation and we went from there.”

Page says having a developmental specialist
come to the family’s home regularly has been a big help as he doesn’t have a
car.

“They bring a ton of toys for him to play
with,” he said.

Gohan language skills have shown signs of
improvement, said his mother, Mariah Holzhauer.

“He didn’t really speak before. Now, he will
ask for juice when he wants it,” she says. “He has been doing a lot better.”

Father and son were are at a REACH play group
in Amherst on a recent Tuesday morning where about a dozen children, each with
a parent or caregiver, were busy with a variety of activities. Some were
playing on a wooden slide, others were pretend cooking in a mini kitchen. The
walls were covered in finger paintings.

The
two-hour play group meets twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The children,
all of whom have been individually evaluated by REACH staff and have set goals,
are working on a range of difficulties from motor and speech delays to social
skills.

The session is a combination of free and
structured time.

Though it looks like play, all of the
activities have a purpose, Musante says. For example they may encourage the
children to use language, imitate an action or even just learn to focus their
attention.

During circle time, when all the kids and
parents are seated on the floor, Musante hands out yellow rubber ducks: “Put
the duck on your head on your head,” she sings, “put your duck on your chin on
your chin…”

Gohan, sitting in his dad’s lap, follows
along, as do the other children.

“This program’s been good – we are really
blessed,” says Michelle Vigeant later, who is there with her 2½-year-old son
Gabriel. He is jumping up and down on a foam play structure with a group of
kids as she talks. She says she connected with REACH in January over her
concern that Gabriel seemed uninterested in other children.

She has seen a big change in him since. He has
been sleeping better at night, she says, and plays well with the other
children. “He has been blossoming socially,” Vigeant said.

The Ghazey-Bates family also found much needed
community support in this play group during the first years of their twins’
lives. Their older son, Robby, who was an excessively shy 2-year old,
also played here during a six-month stint in the REACH program.

“It was just really reassuring to see all the
different people working with their own set of circumstances,” Thalia
Ghazey-Bates said. “It gave you a sense of community and often when there is a
disability in the family, your community feels small.”

The next steps

Before children in the program turn 3, REACH
social workers and developmental specialists work with them and their families
to determine whether they will need an Individualized Education Plan (IEP), an
outline of extra educational supports, when they begin school.

Lilliah
Ghazey-Bates didn’t need one, but Ryland has a plan in place when he starts
preschool at Bridge Street Elementary School in Northampton in the fall. It
outlines safety precautions for his epilepsy — he will need someone with him
when he goes up and down stairs — and speech therapy, to continue working on
his pronunciation and vocabulary.

Mostly, Ryland has caught up to his sister,
Ghazey-Bates says. They are rambunctious 3-year-olds who enjoy playing tag and
drawing together. In addition to making gains in his speech, Ryland now can
take off his shoes without help from his mother, she says, and walk all the way
to the YMCA, a few minute walk from his house, without getting tired, thanks to
his strengthened muscles.

REACH, Ghazey-Bates says, has had a deep impact
on her family.

“It takes a village to raise a child – having
a professionally trained village is really nice.”